Gomez, Markey face off in testy final Senate debate

Wednesday

Jun 19, 2013 at 12:01 AMJun 19, 2013 at 7:02 PM

With less than half the money of his rival and still lagging in the polls, Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez said his message is catching hold with independents and Democrats less than a week before the special U.S. Senate election.

Chris Burrell

With less than half the money of his rival and still lagging in the polls, Republican Senate candidate Gabriel Gomez said his message is catching hold with independents and Democrats less than a week before the special U.S. Senate election.

“You saw the beginning of the comeback of the underdog guy,” Gomez said Tuesday night after the third and final televised debate with Democratic Congressman Ed Markey.

The two candidates sparred sharply over gun control, term limits, Markey’s record in Congress and Gomez’s background in business.

Peter Ubertaccio, a political science professor at Stonehill College in Easton, said Gomez had his best debate performance of the short campaign.

“But it’s not going to shift the contours of the race. Massachusetts sends Democrats to Congress,” he said, adding that it takes a lot voter of disenchantment and “angst” to change that dynamic.

Outside the WGBH studio in Brighton before Tuesday’s debate started, two Gomez supporters from Quincy argued that the Republican from Cohasset still has a shot at winning even though the most recent Boston Globe poll showed him trailing Markey by 13 points, 54 percent to 41 percent, with only 4 percent of those polled saying they were still undecided.

“I’m a blue-collar guy, and the police and firefighters I know are all voting for Gomez,” said Bill Palmer of Quincy, who works as a hospital janitor.

Kimberly Mitchell, Palmer’s wife, said Gomez just needs to meet more voters.

“If you meet him, you’ll vote for him,” said Mitchell, a public schoolteacher. “It seems like Markey just wants to represent environmentalists.”

Tuesday’s debate heated up when both moderator R.D. Sahl and Markey pressed Gomez to disclose details about his business dealings as a private-equity investor.

“He still hasn’t released who his clients were, and he brags about his business career. The people of Massachusetts have a right to know,” said Markey. “With Mr Gomez, we still don’t know who he worked for and which side is he going to be on?”

Gomez shot back: “We don’t have clients. We have investors,” and then added, “‘You should ask President Obama if he is happy ... with what we have done at Advent International.” Obama’s pension fund from his years as an Illinois lawmaker is invested in part with the company, Gomez said.

Throughout the debate, Gomez tried to tie Markey to political gridlock in Washington while Markey took every opportunity to link Gomez with Republican policies.

“I’m a new kind of Republican. And they’re wrong on gay marriage, global warming and expanded background checks for guns,” said Gomez.

But Markey pointed out differences on abortion rights, gun control and Social Security.

“He says he can consider voting for a Supreme Court justice who would overturn Roe v. Wade,” Markey said of Gomez. “He would not support a ban on assault weapons, and he would support cutting Social Security.”

On the issue of term limits, the candidates also turned testy.

Gomez said he told veteran Republican Sen. John McCain, who campaigned for Gomez in Boston last month, that he should leave the Senate at the end of his term.

“Mr. Gomez did not tell John McCain that this is his last term,” said Markey. “That did not happen.”

(Christopher Burrell may be reached at cburrell@ledger.com or follow him on Twitter @Burrell_Ledger.)